There are rare instances when Formula One history stops to catch its breath to remember every second. The moment was 32 years ago, as the nearly unknown Michael Schumacher qualified his Irish Jordan-Ford 191 in a superb 7th place at Spa-Francorchamps for the 1991 Belgian Grand Prix.
The young German arrived for his Formula One debut, having never experienced a racing lap at the daunting drivers' circuit. Despite his race lasting just seven seconds due to clutch failure, he had already jumped into sixth place before Raidillon.
Formula One would never be the same from now on. From that moment forward, everyone knew that the young man with his original black/red/gold helmet with a sky full of stars brought “serious” game.
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The Jordan F1 team dominated the sporting headlines leading up to the Belgian Grand Prix. Jordan’s original contracted driver, Bertrand Gachot, was serving a two-month sentence in an English jail due to a CS gas altercation with a London taxi driver.
Team owner Eddie Jordan, always keen to find a rainbow in the blackest of night, had heard encouraging talk of Schumacher’s rapid maturation, so the Irishman decided to replace Gachot with the young German driver.
Jordan approached Mercedes with an offer; he would provide an F1 showcase for the young Schumacher, still a contracted Mercedes endurance driver, to add lustre to Mercedes' own racing efforts. Within days, Mercedes paid Jordan $150,000 for Schumacher's debut, while behind the scenes, TicTac and Dekra later picked up the tab.
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Schumacher impressed Jordan designer Gary Anderson and team manager Trevor Foster the week before the race during a shakedown familiarisation test drive at Silverstone's South course. Anderson recalled Schumacher's original progress as seeming easy to the youngster.
"The first three laps were quite impressive, but then it was normal," Anderson recalled. "Sure it was something special, but not over-special."
Schumacher's manager assured Jordan that Schumacher knew the challenging Spa-Francorchamps circuit well, although the young racer had only seen it as a spectator. During the race weekend, teammate Andrea de Cesaris was ordered to familiarise the course with Schumacher but couldn't due to his own lengthy contract negotiations.
"Without a good car you can't learn a circuit well," said Schumacher at the time. "But we have quite a good basis with this car, we haven't had to change so many big things, and that's one of the reasons why I can learn the circuit quickly."
"If you have a situation like this, it's quite fantastic for a guy without experience in F1," recalled Schumacher. "Also I talked with Andrea [de Cesaris], and he told me which gears you have to use in which corners."
Given only a few hours remaining for familiarisation and de Cesaris locked in contract deliberation, Schumacher learned the track on his own, jumping on his fold-up bike and memorising each corner entry and apex point in his head.
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Schumacher also learned his way within the Jordan team’s pecking order. His commitment earned their respect, and every time he left the pits, there was the anticipation that this moment was special.
"The relationship between me and the team was quite fantastic," Schumacher recalled. "They accepted me, and that's quite important for me. And working together is quite nice, there's not so many political things in the team, because it's a really small team. There were a lot of good people there."
From the beginning, Michael Schumacher exhibited a keen sense of “photographic memory” and “strategic timing”.
He recalled later, "With my first set of qualifiers I was just on my lap when Eric van de Poele went off and practice was stopped. The second time I tried with the same set of tires, and Alain Prost blocked my lap. He was starting his quick lap; I braked at the limit for me, but he braked a little bit too early for me, and there were only two possibilities; crash into him, or use the escape road. I thought it was better to use it..."
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By Saturday’s second set of qualifiers, Eau Rouge was flat in sixth with a shower of sparks every lap, no problem, and he even had the nerve to top the times for much of the session with a lap on race tires.
"The times were not at the limit, not 100%, but maybe 98%; really good," he recalled. "But I liked to take it easy, because I wanted to qualify the car, and not more. I didn't want to take any risks."
Schumacher set his best time on his 22nd-ever lap of Spa-Francorchamps, including entrance and leaving from the Jordan pit. It qualified him eighth on the grid, five places ahead of team-mate Andrea de Cesaris. It became seventh after Riccardo Patrese was penalised [for not having a working reverse gear].
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Despite the disappointment of Spa 1991 DNF, Michael Schumacher never looked back. Instead, he lifted F1 to new heights: Seven World Championships, 91 Grand Prix victories, 155 podiums, 68 Pole Positions (second all-time) and 1566 career points.
Simply breathtaking.
